Meet Your Email Competition

It’s not bad enough that every nonprofit you compete with for funds is badgering your donors with email appeals. Their appeals are just the tip of the iceberg. This remarkable infographic from ExactTarget shows you just how crowded those in-boxes will get over the balance of the year.

According to ExactTarget, the average online retailer will send 17 promotional emails in July, 18 in August and September, 20 in October, 25 in November, 27 in December and 18 in January. That’s 125 before the year end’s. And that’s just one retailer!

Here’s the environment you’re fishing in. The advice given on how to use those 125 messages is really designed for online retailing, but it’s interesting to see the retailer’s mindset at work.

With such huge promotional email trafffic, it’s actually a credit to nonprofit online fundraisers that you succeed at all … thankfully online giving is steadily rising.

Perhaps two reasons …

You’re really offering a better ‘product’.

And, despite the occasional lapses discussed yesterday, experience is growing, winning tactics are visible for all in the biz to see and learn from, and consequently, you’re getting better and better at it.

Tom

P.S. Yesterday I proffered a “We haven’t heard from you” email from NTEN as a soft touch alternative to EDF’s call-out of non-responding email activists. But wait, even the soft touch caused backlash. Read about it here. Golly, online ‘supporters’ are a prickly bunch!